Westgarth Forster Brown
Westgarth Forster Brown (1867-1943)
1943 Obituary [1]
WESTGARTH FORSTER BROWN, C.B.E., was born at Cardiff on the 9th August, 1867, and died at Newcastle-on-Tyne on the 16th July, 1943.
He was educated at Marlborough College and received his engineering training at the Newcastle College of Science and as a pupil with Messrs. Forster Brown and Rees, of Cardiff. After practical experience at Whitburn colliery, Durham, and on the construction of the Barry docks, he spent two years in New Zealand, where he acquired a knowledge of mining under various conditions.
On his return, in 1889, he was placed in charge of the sinking and equipment of a large modern colliery for the North‘s Navigation Colliery Company.
In 1892 he was appointed an assistant to the firm of Forster Brown and Rees, and in 1894 became a partner, being engaged on the design and execution of a colliery undertaking in Durham for Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd. As it member of the firm, of which he became senior partner, he acted as Mineral Adviser and Agent for many important mineral estate owners, and in addition to making many investigations, reports, and valuations of properties and mineral undertakings in the United Kingdom he visited many foreign countries in the course of his work.
He served on a number of Committees, including the Central Valuation Committee in connexion with the provisions of the Coal Act, 1938, and was a member of the Imperial Mineral Resources Bureau.
At the time of his death he was the Regional Estates Manager for the Northern and Southern Regional Areas, on behalf of the Coal Commission....[more]